


Trading (Blows)

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bruises, Coda, M/M, Recovery, Season/Series 11, Team Free Will, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't agree with Dean's penance.<br/>Dean never lets him serve his own out.</p><p>An 11.03 coda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trading (Blows)

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the rights to these characters, setting, show, etc. No harm is intended.
> 
>  
> 
> **Spoilers for Season 11, through 11.03.**

As the swelling goes down, the bruises emerge purple and gray and dark-dark red, black and nearly-blue.

Cas watches their progress.

He doesn't agree with Dean's penance.

Dean never lets him serve his own out.  
One good turn deserves another.

So as Dean sweeps by him too-close.  
And as he moves past him, fingers hooked to touch at his elbow in passing, in the kitchen--

Sam is the one who stops him.

They let Dean grab his bag of chips and do his annoying open-mouthed crunching thing and grin at them and leave the room.

Sam looks down. "Don't."

Sam has very solid rules about autonomy. Even when Dean's hurt and clearly still wincing, poking fingers against the side of his head as if it will get less tender every time he tests.

"Just a little at a time," Cas assures him. "He won't even no-"

"Yeah, no," Sam nods. "He said 'no.' And I think that's a," he points, motions between Cas and the door. "I think that's a _you two_ thing. But Dean said no. So: no."

Well. The injuries aren't life-threatening. And Sam is entitled to be protective of his brother's wishes.

"C'mon," Sam claps a hand over his shoulder, urges him to turn and leads him down to the hall where the dorm rooms are.

He flips on a light in the room across the hall from where Dean sleeps.

"You can put your stuff down. You know? Stay."

Castiel looks around the room. Looks back up at Sam.

"Exchanging punches doesn't make you guys even. Do either of you know that?" Sam considers him with sort of a wry smile.

Cas steps around the doorway and into the room and leans against the wall. "Having a room won't make me pretend to sleep which won't make him any more comfortable around me which also doesn't make us even. We're not even. I owe-"

"We don't do that. Or at least we're not supposed to be doing that. Ever since Rufus, at least, we were supposed to always call it square. Because we're family." Sam stares off into the far corner, through the bed and through the walls and through recent memory. "And the stuff that happens under mind-control doesn't count. Goes for you, goes for him. I don't understand where the disconnect is coming from." He sighs, refocuses. "But it's always fucking _something_ with you two. You guys exchange punches like they're damn birthday cards. Like a gag gift or something. Don't you know how to exchange anything else?"

Parallels.

Well. Sam called it.

It's about parallels. He has to watch Dean's bruises age because of parallels.

"I guess it is kind of a shitty data set to reproduce," he blinks. Looks up.

Sam's smiling again.

"Yeah. Do some other math. Aside from two wrongs equaling a right. You guys are just." He laughs out a breath and shoves his hands in his pockets and lulls against the door frame. "You guys are something."

And in that unsettling way he has, like he's got access to wisdom he shouldn't be carrying, his eyes slide away and he does, too, round the corner and down the hall and disappearing.

**Blankets.**

When Dean falls asleep at the table, reading myths about The Darkness, Castiel wanders out to pull the blanket over his shoulders.

One good turn deserves another.

**Breakfast.**

Dean wakes up and shakes the blanket off and grunts at Cas across the table. Disappears to empty his bladder and throw cold water on his face.

Cas is almost done microwaving two of those sausage sandwiches from the box in the freezer.

He pulls open the wrapper and the steam puffs out and he hands it over when Dean wanders into the kitchen.

He tosses it hand-to-hand, _hot hot_ , until he gingerly pulls the package open all the way. They lean back against the counter and Cas is more... analyzing his than really enjoying it.

But it's something to do. Something to give.

A parallel.

**Research.**

Sam and Dean found Rowena and got the spell purged from him. So he's determined that the next revelation in their hunt for The Darkness should come from himself.

He's largely unsuccessful in attempting to make calls to area orphanages, however. And he's frustrated with Sam for finding the next puzzle piece.

It's what Sam _does_ , of course. It's to be expected.

It was just supposed to come from him.  
He's supposed to be--

It's supposed to be _his_ turn.

He follows them on the hunt, though. Something might turn up that he could do.

And he is a productive member of the team. He takes his turn as lookout, takes his turn on the stakeout, wakes them as the first calls go out on the police bands.

He's working as just another part of the overall machine, though. He's not... exchanging. It isn't about him making up for what's been given to him.

So he turns his attention inward.

What does he know about Metatron?

Where would he go where he might lay low?  
But still indulge in... yes. The stories.

His interest in stories. Where could he be concealed that he might still read?

Or watch movies and television-- better yet?

Where would he go to expand his influence as a writer?

That's as far as he'd moved on in his obsession. What might give him the power?

Well. There's Hollywood, isn't there? Metatron packed Castiel's head with hundreds of stories of the young and optimistic and the old and tired alike trying to find their fame in Hollywood, telling stories barely worth hearing (in his opinion).

He could do it. He could go and investigate and bring Metatron back to the bunker, himself.

He could do this good turn. Advance Dean's hunt in pursuit of information related to The Darkness by bringing the Scribe to him.

They're north right now. And he has no car, but he's learned how to remedy such a situation.

As Sam and Dean pack the motel to head back, he stops Dean with a hand to his elbow.

He doesn't heal the rest of the bruising or his most recent injuries. And Sam doesn't even pause, headed to the front office. He knows Cas wouldn't do it, now. He's said he won't and he means to keep doing his _returning_ in these other ways.

"What's up?" Dean eyes him up and down.

"I think as you two head back, I'll head west. Try and follow up a lead on Marv."

"We have a lead?" Dean looks between the direction Sam went off, and Cas. "Well, we'll come with."

"It could be nothing. It's tenuous."

"You don't have a ride."

Cas looks around, comes closer, says quietly, "I had planned to remedy that with the Pontiac in the adjacent lot," he nods.

"That clunker? It's a fucking minivan, Cas. Come on we-." He stops. Blinks. "Ah. Guess you've. You know. Had enough of human speed. What with the sleeping and all."

Castiel shifts at the renewal of what's becoming an increasingly uncomfortable subject for some reason. "No. No, I. It's just." He can't think of anything that would be true for some reason. What's actually true is that he would prefer their help and their... company. But he doesn't deserve it. It's-- "It's my turn."

Dean's expression comes in louder than the accidental mental exclamation, loud enough for him to hear. _You've gotta be kidding me._ "We don't _take turns_ solving cases. We." He seems at a loss. "We can do this as a team. I mean. That's what we do, that's what we're doing: we're doing things as a team. It's working for us, lately. I mean. Nobody's hopped up on anything. I think the lies have been at a minimum. We're. I mean. Do _you_ think we're doing bad?"

"No. No. I just. I think. It's my turn to. To." He shrugs. "Do another good turn."

Dean is well and truly lost this time.

"My turn. Instead of fighting. Instead of. Bruising. It just seems like we should exchange good things. For a while. See if that." He deflates. "Evens us out. I don't know. It's stupid."

Dean looks left and right and shifts. "It's not stupid. What about." He shakes his head. "What about maybe it's your turn to. To stand-- stand by? Like. Stick around. Maybe that's. Something we can. Exchange?" he proposes, halting and shrugging.

He'd never thought of his presence as something that required exchanging.

His absence, maybe.

He must stare at Dean too long. He clamps a hand on his shoulder and shakes him. "C'mon. Just point me in the right direction. If it's your turn to do anything- hey. How about it's your turn to navigate? You take shotgun, okay?"

Dean tosses his last bag in and shuts the trunk and goes to make one last sweep of the room.

It's his turn to stick around?

Dean always sticks around. He's sort of... held here, though. Easy to find him when he can't exactly escape the planet in a single wing-beat. (Doesn't really even leave the continent, at that.)

If it's Castiel's turn to stick around?  
He's gonna be here for a while.

Sam wanders back and asks him what he's smiling about.

«»

They find several suspicious productions in progress in Los Angeles, but from what Cas can tell, they're all just.

Whatever.

All of them are suspicious in one way or another. Mysterious advancements and "favors" done and almost everyone you speak to seems to be writing scripts. Metatron would be a needle in a haystack here.

It's California, though, and therefore not a total waste. Sam looks up someone he hasn't seen in years and skips out for half a day to go check on them. Make sure they truly escaped his orbit unscathed.

Dean doesn't like the idea, but lets him go without much objection as his heart is so clearly in it.

He introduces lunch as, "It's my turn to take you to lunch."

He can't recall taking Dean to lunch before. Perhaps he meant breakfast.

Dean twists a straw wrapper on the tabletop for three and a half minutes before he says, "Sam told me about how you're exchanging-- he explained it to me. That he said we exchange punches like we owe them to each other. And we oughta be exchanging other things. So. I see where you got the idea from."

Cas stirs nothing into his coffee with the spoon that came with it for some reason.

"You don't owe me anything," Dean adds after a while.

And Cas can only.  
You know. Glare.

"You don't," Dean insists. "I mean goddamn. If you really think that way, we need to pick a point-zero, start over and just. Not do that anymore. This isn't an obligation, Cas. This isn't an exchange of services," he motions between them. "This is." He sniffs. Considers the straw wrapper again. Their surroundings. The people. Drops his voice: "This is family. At least. I mean, I think it is. I don't know." He stops himself and sighs.

Cas mulls this over. He decides that there's a misapprehension there. As much as he likes the idea, "There are such things as familial obligations, correct?"

"Well, yeah. I know that. I know. Like, you have a kid, you have to support him. You have a wife, you stay loyal. You got them, they got you. It's a team. You get each other's backs. And you do that. Cas- you do that out of love. Not because you owe them. A kid doesn't _owe_ their parents for bringing them into the world. A you don't _owe_ someone loyalty when you marry them. You give them those things because you respect them. Because you love them. I know your family," his eyes go wide at the inevitable understatement, "is a little _different_."

Cas gives in to a bit of grumbling here.

"You never owed them loyalty, either. I'm just throwing that out there, Cas. I'm saying. Yeah. Some shit went down and you feel awful about it. But a family." He rubs his jaw. "A family wants you there more than they want what you owe them. If you owe them anything. They want you just to be there more than they want their due."

And it's impossible not to think of the times Dean's chased after Sam even knowing Sam wanted to be away from him. Even knowing that Sam prioritized other things above their family relationship.

He wanted him there because he loves him.

Sam wants Dean to be happy, not because he's earned it as a warrior, but because he quite simply loves him.

"I think my math comes from a different set of weights and measures," he comments.

"Well, you don't have to eat, so you don't _value_ a quarter-pounder, so I'm gonna have to agree, man," he says as his food is brought to the table.

«»

"You _can_ do _something_ for me," Dean decides by the time they get back to the motel. Then seems to instantly lose his nerve for the idea as soon as he's cut the engine off. "You know what? Nevermind. I just gave you that whole speech. That was a dumbass thing to say."

Cas smiles a little. "You might try believing me when I say that--" he looks to Dean, deliberately, and waits for him to turn, "-- we're family. So. I want to do things for you. If you need something." He shrugs. "Want something. It doesn't have to be an exchange."

Dean sniffs. Scratches at his neck. "Well. It would be. I mean. I."

He's silent. And then he shakes his head. And then he just get out of the car and heads back to the room.

Cas lets him be alone to consider it. Takes his time getting out, grabbing the soda Dean left, closing the car back up. Shuts the motel door securely behind himself.

He hands Dean his drink after he's shucked his jacket. Dean just puts it down and continues to avoid Cas's eyes.

Turns toward the bathroom.

Then turns back, abruptly. "I mean."

He scratches at his neck again and he's come in close to Cas but can't meet his eyes.

"I mean. Sam was right to tell you that, though. We do kind of exchange punches but. Not the part that matters."

"I think it matters that I've hit you. I think it matters a tremendous amount and it needs to stop."

"Well, you're-- it's not like. Abuse. It's. I mean, it's normally some sort of spell or--" Dean waves it off. "It's not that. It's, I mean. After. I mean." He takes a deep breath. Blows it out. "You were willing to support me through a recovery, basically? Help me not be bruised and broken? And I said no. And. I mean. I can't heal you. I can't do that." He finally meets Cas's eyes and he looks terrified to be doing so.

So Cas pulls Dean's hands away from where he's now thumbing into the back of his own neck from the nerves.

"That's not the way I see it. Because, see? This is more what I remember."

He draws Dean's hands to his own face. Dean's fingers cupping his ears and adding a kind of hollow static to the human sounds of the room.

He holds Dean's hands in place with his own until Dean's taken a few more deep breaths. And he nods. Steps forward.

Cradles Castiels' head as before, in the warehouse.

So Cas lets him. And raises his own hands to Dean's neck. Thumbs under his jaw and fingers spanning to the back of his head. "So this is. We can exchange this, is what you meant? That I could do this for you?"

Dean's staring at him like he's a little overwhelmed.  
But he does nod.

"Alright," he says quietly. "If-

Dean closes his eyes and leans forward.

Cas meets his head as softly as he can.

"If I could give you more of this, I'd like that," he says. "This could be a. A beneficial exchange."

"Yeah," Dean says, eyes still closed, but face open, like he's _absorbing_. "What if we don't hurt each other anymore? What if. _This_."

"Without the punching beforehand," he flexes his hands to bring Dean's head down and press his mouth into his hair.

"Yeah," Dean repeats, that same breathy way.

"I think that. More than anything else? This would make us even."

Dean dips his head and presses it into Cas's neck and his hands span wide to hold Castiel.

They inch into this. Not like the healing, when Cas had to stop and watch the bruises go red to purple to gray.

This he can feel.

The disbelief in Dean's body melting from tension to caution to trust.

He can come close without there being pain, first.

They can trade.  
He can trust, too.


End file.
